We'll admit it; we're softies when it comes to motocross racing, especially when it involves pitting bikes against quads (and every other garden variety of off-road racer, for that matter), and we've been having our way with MX vs. ATV Untamed ever since we sank our claws into the preview code a month or so ago. In the first entry onto HD-era platforms for the franchise, Rainbow Studios has delivered a competent, good-looking and varied racer in Untamed that has all the crucial ingredients for making a motocross and offroad racer great --a hyper-fast sense of speed, lots of sweet tricks and a realistic physics engine to run it all on....

The result is great offline and online play and, barring a few minor quibbles, Untamed delivers breakneck racing and high flying trickery that's as intense as its current brunette vs. blonde ad spot is hot. On that count, for the record, kissing beats out hugs by a long shot. We spent nearly an equal amount of time with the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Untamed, and they both play almost identically, though the PS3 beats the 360 on load times. Thankfully, load times are more bearable on both systems thanks to an innovative new practice hangar that lets you tear around while you wait, which is one of many details Rainbow nails to make Untamed soar.

Whip It Good

In our last preview, we covered the main events in detail. Since then, not much has really changed in the retail build. The Quick Events and Custom Events are fun ways to get acclimated to the tracks and racing styles in the nine available series: Free-Ride, National, Supercross, Freestyle, Opencross, Supermoto, Endurocross, Waypoint and Minimoto. Since the guys at Rainbow really pride themselves on re-creating the "go big" feel of trick-centric motocross, you'll really want to master the finer points of pulling off the new analog-driven tricks, as we have.

Starting with whips, after a good preload, you can let your momentum 'swap' your bike out to the side (just like the old flatliner tricks) controlling the yaw with the left analog stick for killer full-horizontal whips. Same thing goes for scrubs and flips, all of which perform really well with the analog interface. Because each extension and landing is controlled by your analog input and not a button combo, you can really start to develop a style all your own that looks and feels totally different than the button-mapped tricks, though the button controlled tricks are great too.

From that point, we divided our time spent with Untamed between winning the X-Cross tournament and some good online play. Working through the preliminary events and unlocking the 9 or so races on the way to the big race isn't too tough and while there are times when it gets a bit repetitive (there are only five events in the tourney), it's not long to the point that it ever feels like you'll want to turn it off and move on to something else.

Third Place FTW

Anyone who has spent any time playing an MX vs. ATV game knows that racing can become secondary to pulling off that big tsunami. The tricks in Untamed are well-rounded and easy to engage. Once you're in the air, you can pick tricks by moving the left stick up, down, left or right and tapping triangle (or Y) and circle (or B), or both, to create mad taunts, catwalks, seat grabbing Indian airs and more. We're a sucker for a good rigor mortis in Supercross, which yields big points and cheers from the stands, though you have to be careful; there's a 4 to 8 second penalty to pay if you bail (or if you careen off the track for more than 4 seconds). Still, we'd risk coming in third to diss the competition by stringing together a sweet sterilizer and nacnac on our way to pulling a huge ruler.

More Than a New Paint Job

In addition to the physics engine, the graphics are pretty good, though some of the events look better than others. For instance, the Supercross tracks and races look polished and the bikes look as clean and crisp as they perform. However, with Endurcross, Free-ride and Waypoint, this just isn't the case. On Endurocross, the tracks and environmental models are murky and on Free-ride and Waypoint, which are more open-world levels than tracks, there are tons of spots that look like they were graphically lifted right out of the PS2 version of Unleashed. The water and grass near the marshes on the Clearwater stage are an example of this.

As a whole, the rider models just aren't on the same level as what Evolution Studios achieved with MotorStorm, though there are moments in which the graphics are incredible -- the draw distances you'll see as you shotgun over a crest in Waypoint, for instance, is unlike what you're used to in a MX vs. ATV game. Also, how come the races in Waypoint don't take us all over the place through these huge environments Rainbow designed? Going in what amounts to a large oval across a map is dull, especially when there's so much to see. Take us through some caves or up a bunch of mountain trails and shoot us unexpectedly out through a waterfall over an Excite Truck-scale superjump. Do it.

Face-Off

It only makes sense that a game about rivalries has a great multiplayer component and Untamed is not wanting in that area. In addition to two player split-screen, you can play with up to twelve players online with Xbox 360 and eight with PS3 in an assortment of events taken straight out of the offline modes, with a few fun mini-games thrown in for good measure. The first two events, Quick Match and Custom Match, work almost exactly like their offline sound-alike modes, while the minigames are a whole new bag thanks to games like Graffiti, Tag and Snake. Snake, still our fave, is like playing a light cycle death race from "Tron" in which you box other riders in with a neon tail you leave behind.

Bottom line, though, MX vs. ATV Untamed isn't the greatest motocross game ever, but it's so much damn fun that you probably won't care. Note to Rainbow, though: fire that janky, poorly rendered blonde you have carrying the sign before races and insert some live-action shots of two beauties in your commercial. You'll sell way more games.